The UK Culture of Online Casinos and Gambling

May 28, 201820

Britain has fallen in love with online betting, and the romance is not about to die out anytime in the near future. Online platforms have made it a lot easier to wager on whatever you want, be it online gambling or sports betting. Britons have always had a penchant for gambling, so it’s not entirely surprising that technology has simply opened up a whole bunch of new avenues to do it.

One big trend in the UK that’s gained a lot of popularity is matched betting, which kind of has a cult following because quite a few people have made a sizeable fortune from it. A simple search on YouTube will yield a number of videos on how so-and-so made six figures with matched betting, and it remains popular.

The internet has made it much easier than ever before to bet on whichever sport you so desire, and there are millions of Britons who indulge in online sports betting. While the modern technology makes betting easier, it seems that the UK is fairly traditional in the sports it bets on: horse racing is one of the most popular sports to wager on. Interestingly, there’s no gender gap here, and women are equally likely to wager their money. Indeed, the average gambler is estimated to spend over 14% of their income on betting.

While there’s definitely been a surge in betting since the option has been there online, the fact remains that most people who gamble online are purely amateurs. Professional gamblers prefer more traditional outlets, while amateur gamblers are mostly in it for the thrill. Gambling can become addictive, and now that anyone can download an app to their phone and start playing video slots it’s become a lot easier to get hooked.

The upsurge in online betting is most prominent among young adults, which isn’t really that surprising. Young adults in general are more tied to their mobile devices, and are coincidentally prone to risk-taking and thrill-seeking activities. Since online betting feeds both of these desires, it seems pretty reasonable that this demographic would be the most interested and potentially caught up in it. There are numerous theories as to why this is, such as lacking the responsibilities of older adults. That doesn’t entirely explain the trend though, and a larger part of it is simply how easy it is to bet and access to technology.

The rising trend of online betting in Britain is in fact so prevalent that it may well overtake online gaming in terms of sheer numbers. This is actually a global trend, and governments are increasingly allowing online betting but moving towards more regulation. The trend looks set to stay, and so long as you wager responsibly it’s probably not an issue.